Pinned topicWelcome to the place to find Atom, RSS, and other XML syndication help

‏2007-03-14T12:14:17Z
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Let me just start out by saying "welcome," and I'm glad you found this forum. I'm Nick Chase, and I'm here to guide, explain, steer, and otherwise help in any way that I can so that you can get the most out of Atom, RSS, and other syndication technologies.

Got a question? Stuck on something? Can't figure out why your query isn't working? Go ahead and create a new topic so people can see what you're looking for. Got an answer to someone's conundrum? Go ahead and post it! I'm hoping this will become more of a community of people with an interest in syndicating information (and making use of syndicated information) than just me answering questions.

In the meantime, here are some links to get you started. You can find the relevant specifications here:

You can also find a lot of great intro material here on developerWorks. Check out:

New to RSS and syndication: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/rss/
An overview of the Atom 1.0 Syndication Format: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-atom10.html
Getting to know the Atom Publishing Protocol,
Part 1: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-atompp1/
Part 2: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-atompp2/
Part 3: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-atompp3/

And of course, what forum about feeds would be complete without, well, it's own feed? You can subscribe to the RSS feed for this forum here: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/dw_forum_rss.jsp?forum=1087&full=true

I'd also like to hear from you if you've got an innovative new use for Atom or RSS, or an implementation you're finding useful.

RSS is being ruined, contaminated by money-grubbing "service providers".

‏2007-03-26T21:23:22Z

This is the accepted answer.
This is the accepted answer.

Here is the item of most concern to me:

Instead of letting RSS/Atom work as it was/is intended, that each user subscribe to the "feeds" that interest them, perhaps via a simple, free Reader that simply periodically checks the XML "feed" links on various WWW sites, various organizations are ruining it IMHO by trying to corner part of the traffic to their own WWW sites by offering a "service", sometimes called "aggregation", which is (again IMHO) a thinly disguised proprietary interface insertion that adds no real value to the customer and merely sucks (or suckers) them into the provider's WWW site by giving the impression of "handling all the RSS difficulties for them" (IMHO there is no such thing as an "RSS difficulty"). When several of these proprietary "service providers" gain customers, immediately the customers' choices are limited to only those "feeds" that support that provider's method, which means each customer must (in the worst case) run every proprietary service (and suffer the consequences of all their advertising etc. agreements) to access all desired feeds. If allowed to continue, this practice will surely ruin RSS, won't it?

If you agree, what can anyone do about it other than publicize the facts? Can we form a community of reporters that exposes the evil perpetrators?

If you don't agree, please comment/explain.

Jim

When settling down in front of a computer to do something useful,
Never say, or even think,
"I will just do this quickly."

Re: RSS is being ruined, contaminated by money-grubbing "service providers".

Instead of letting RSS/Atom work as it was/is intended, that each user subscribe to the "feeds" that interest them, perhaps via a simple, free Reader that simply periodically checks the XML "feed" links on various WWW sites, various organizations are ruining it IMHO by trying to corner part of the traffic to their own WWW sites by offering a "service", sometimes called "aggregation", which is (again IMHO) a thinly disguised proprietary interface insertion that adds no real value to the customer and merely sucks (or suckers) them into the provider's WWW site by giving the impression of "handling all the RSS difficulties for them" (IMHO there is no such thing as an "RSS difficulty"). When several of these proprietary "service providers" gain customers, immediately the customers' choices are limited to only those "feeds" that support that provider's method, which means each customer must (in the worst case) run every proprietary service (and suffer the consequences of all their advertising etc. agreements) to access all desired feeds. If allowed to continue, this practice will surely ruin RSS, won't it?

If you agree, what can anyone do about it other than publicize the facts? Can we form a community of reporters that exposes the evil perpetrators?

If you don't agree, please comment/explain.

Jim

When settling down in front of a computer to do something useful,
Never say, or even think,
"I will just do this quickly."